Navajo Treaty of 1868 Why Was the Navajo Journey Home So Remarkable?

Contemporary Connections

Featured Sources  Case Study: Navajo (Diné) Nation Homelands Today— See how the Navajo (Diné) Nation continues to find ways to secure and sustain its homelands for future generations.

Student Tasks  Optional Student Planning Extension: NK360° Framework for Taking Informed Action

Student Outcomes KNOW Native People, communities, organizations, and nations take informed action to mediate social and political issues.

UNDERSTAND The unique characteristics and challenges of reaffirming tribal sovereignty and how the Navajo (Diné) Nation continues to find ways to secure and sustain its homelands.

DO Identify, describe, and infer the characteristics of community organizing and how Native Nations organize to celebrate and sustain native cultures.

AmericanIndian.si.edu/NK360 1 Navajo Treaty of 1868 Why Was the Navajo Journey Home So Remarkable? Teacher Materials

Standards Contemporary Connection [C3 Dimension Standards] D4.7.6-8. Assess their individual and collective capacities to take action to address local, regional, and global problems, taking into account a range of possible levers of power, strategies, and potential outcomes. D4.6.6-8. Draw on multiple disciplinary lenses to analyze how a specific problem can manifest itself at local, regional, and global levels over time, identifying its characteristics and causes, and the challenges and opportunities faced by those trying to address the problem.

Extension Taking Informed Action [C3 Dimension Standards] D4.7.6-8. Assess their individual and collective capacities to take action to address local, regional, and global problems, taking into account a range of possible levers of power, strategies, and potential outcomes D4.8.6-8. Apply a range of deliberative and democratic procedures to make decisions and take action in their classrooms and schools, and in out-of-school civic contexts.

AmericanIndian.si.edu/NK360 2 Navajo Treaty of 1868 Why Was the Navajo Journey Home So Remarkable? Teacher Materials

Contemporary Connections Lesson Procedures

Featured Sources  Case Study: Navajo (Diné) Nation Homelands Today— See how the Navajo (Diné) Nation continues to find ways to secure and sustain its homelands for future generations.

Student Task  Optional Student Planning Extension: NK360° Framework for Taking Informed Action

Anticipatory Set  Ask students what the word agency means (agency means the ability to act or use power).  As needed, help students define the word in their own terms. Students might brainstorm examples of agency in their own lives.  Transition to the concept of agency as it relates to this inquiry. While the Navajo (Diné) did make concessions in an effort to return to their homelands and the 3.5-million-acre reservation recognized under the Treaty was only a fraction of the Navajo’s (Diné’s) traditional tribal homelands, the Navajo (Diné) have always desired to gain back more of their lands.  Over time, the Navajo (Diné) expanded the treaty-prescribed boundaries, and today the nation encompasses about 17 million acres of land in northwestern New Mexico, northeastern Arizona, and southeastern Utah, making it the largest reservation in the United States.

Guided Practice and Optional Expository Writing  Explain to students that one way in which we can see Navajo (Diné) agency at work is the purchase of two large ranches in Colorado. This land purchase brings the Navajo (Diné) Nation closer to two of its sacred mountains, Blanca Peak and Hesperus Mountain.  Direct students to the contemporary-connections case study, Navajo (Diné) Nation Homelands Today.  After examining the image, reading the supporting quote, and considering the discussion questions, students might complete an expository-writing sample about the significance of the land purchase to sustaining Navajo (Diné) sovereignty and culture for future generations.

AmericanIndian.si.edu/NK360 3